


Right in Front of Me

by Ryah_Ignis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Eileen Lives, Bunker Fluff, F/M, Hen Party, Human Castiel, M/M, Post-Canon, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-11-13 22:15:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11194530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryah_Ignis/pseuds/Ryah_Ignis
Summary: Once there aren’t any more apocalypses to fight or worlds to save, the Winchesters revert to their kind of normal–living in the bunker and chasing down the occasional monster.  But when Eileen needs a cosigner on her apartment in Wichita and Sam moves out, Dean has to figure out what exactly his kind of normal is without his brother.  And what role Cas plays in it.Featuring Destiel, Sam/Eileen, a hen party thrown by Jody, Donna, and the rest of the Wayward Daughters, an inordinate amount of baking, and more ASL research than probably strictly necessary, all wrapped up in a cute, 9k post-series fic.





	1. The One Where Dean Doesn't Punch Something (But He Kind of Wants To)

**Author's Note:**

> Huge, huge thank you to my prompter, wandernork, over on tumblr. And another huge thank you to my beta, burntblackfeathers, also on tumblr!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam wants to move out of the bunker, and Dean isn’t particularly happy about it.

The whole morning was kind of ruined by Dean slouching into the kitchen halfway through breakfast to make himself a cup of coffee.

Usually, Sam heard his brother coming and fended him off so he and Eileen could have the kitchen to themselves, but evidently, he hadn’t been quite quick enough on the draw this time.  Sue him.  He’d been distracted—Eileen had taken to wearing his old purple t-shirt with the dog on it to bed.

“Morning,” Dean grunted as he waited for the machine to start gurgling.

Sam gave him a rather pointed look.  Finally getting the picture, he ducked out of the kitchen soon afterwards without actually putting any sugar or cream in his drink.

A few hours later, neither of them had bothered to change out of their pajamas.  They’d meant to get to work on a couple of cold cases, but the siren song of Netflix had been too powerful to ignore.

“So, I was thinking.”

Sam scrabbled for the remote and shifted Eileen in his arms so she could read his lips.  She tilted her head back on to his shoulder and smiled at him.  Sam had to twist his arm into a pretzel to do it, but he managed to pause the _Parks and Rec_ episode they’d been working on.

“Yeah?”

“About renting an apartment,” she clarified. “In Wichita.  It’s only about two hours away, it’s near the center of the US, so any hunts wouldn’t be that far away.  And I need a cosigner.”

Sam’s heart made an absurd little leap in his chest.  Instantly, though, reality set back in.  Every time he’d managed to settle down with someone—Jessica, Amelia—it had gone horribly wrong.  He didn’t want to do the same with Eileen.

“I just—I just don’t think that would be a good idea.”

She raised her eyebrows, touching the tips of her fingers to her forehead and then withdrawing them into a loose _Y_ shape.  It took Sam a moment to register the sign.  He reached down to brush her hair out of her eyes.

“I don’t want to get you hurt.”

She shot a pointed look at her boots, sitting by the door to Sam’s room.  More specifically, Sam knew, at the knife he knew was sewn the left one. 

“Okay, okay.  I get your point.  You can handle yourself.”

“Exactly.” She reached forward and bopped him on the nose. “I know how crazy your life is.  And I want all that crazy to share a living room with me.”

Sam let out a puff of air through his nose.  It was really hard to say no to her when she got like this.

“What if all this crazy leaves his dirty laundry laying around?”

Eileen smiled blandly at him. “Then all this crazy gets to sleep on the couch.”

Sam could picture it so easily.  Rolling over in the morning to Eileen’s smile.  Making breakfast and probably burning the bacon but laughing about it anyway.  Spending late nights in the library.  After a life of motel rooms, of sleeping in the backseat of a too-small car, he wanted this so badly.  And wasn’t it about time he got something he wanted?

He smiled at her. “You know what?  Let’s do it.”

* * *

Agreeing to Eileen had been the easy part.  Sam _really_ wasn’t looking forward to telling Dean about his decision.  They’d gotten a lot better at acting like normal brothers over the last few years (or, at least, there’d been significantly fewer soul-selling incidents than in the past), but they’d grown up in each other’s pockets and spent most of their adult lives, sans college and Hell, living side by side. 

He deliberately left the conversation off as long as he feasibly could.  Eileen raised her eyebrows at him when he walked her out to her car without even broaching the subject,  but he’d all but shoved her into the front seat with a promise to deal with it and sent her on her way.

“You’re getting better at the sign language thing,” Dean commented when he strode back into the library.

“ASL, actually. There’s a ton of different versions.  Like if you speak American Sign Language, you might not even be able to understand someone who’s speaking British—never mind.  What makes you say that?”

Dean shrugged. “Probably the fact that she makes fun of you behind your back less often.”

Sam whacked him with part of the card catalog he was trying to build.  Laughing, Dean put his hands up in surrender.

“Okay, okay.  It’s nice to see you all sweet on someone like this.”

Knowing that Eileen would kill him later if she learned that he’d let a conversation starter like that one slip through his fingers, Sam steeled himself for a rough ride.

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.”

He dropped into the chair across the table from Dean’s.  Sam read a few lines from the book in front of him upside down.  Sure enough, it wasn’t lore—it was a cookbook.

Dean shook his head. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times, Sammy.  Just start with the tongue and go with what feels natural.”

Sam hit him again. “That wasn’t even useful intel when I was in high school, jerk.”

“You’re only saying that because you were kissing girls on the debate team.”

He rolled his eyes. “Not my point.  Eileen asked me to move in with her.”

He decided to say it like pulling off a Band-Aid, only he must have taken quite a bit of skin with it, because Dean just gaped at him for a few moments without speaking at all.  Sam wasn’t sure if he should say anything else.  Finally, his brother recovered.

“Where?”

“Wichita.  It’s only like two hours away.  An hour and fifteen if you drive like you do.” He could tell already that it wasn’t helping.

* * *

 

Dean tried to recover from the shock. “That’s…um.  That’s great, Sam.  Really.  It is.”

He realized that he was digging into his palms with his nails.  Dean quickly pried his hands off of themselves and forced a smile until Sam basically fled the room.  He thought he’d taken the news pretty well, all things considered.  He hadn’t broken anything at least.

Okay, the bar was pretty low.  It was probably a good thing that Sam had left when he had.  Logically, Dean knew it was about time that they actually started to figure out their lives.  After all, the world wasn’t ending every other week anymore.

Still.  He took to pacing up and down the library, wearing down a track that was usually the one Sam walked.

“Sam told me you were in here.”

Dean offered up a pinched sort of smile as Cas poked his head into the library.  His newly human peach fuzz was starting to dominate his cheeks again.  He’d have to leave a razor in Cas’s room again; he didn’t appreciate more direct hints about his appearance.

“He tell you he’s leaving?’

His stomach clenched up again at the reminder that their lives were going to change.  He’d had enough change already, damn it.  He deserved some time to adjust to normalcy.

“Yes.”

Dean’s fists clenched again involuntarily at his sides.  What was it going to be like without Sam getting up early in the morning to run?  Who was he supposed to throw dusty tomes at when the letters started swimming in his vision?  How was he supposed to not worry knowing Sam was out there hunting alone?  Okay.  With Eileen.  But still—with someone who wasn’t him.

“Why aren’t you worrying?” Dean snapped when Cas didn’t say anything else.

Cas smoothed his fingers through his peach fuzz.  For the first time, it occurred to Dean that maybe he was trying it out as a style.

“It may have escaped your notice, Dean, but Sam is not a child.”

Dean bit back a snappish response.  It wouldn’t do him any good to piss off his potential ally in the get-Sam-to-stay plan.

“Besides,” Cas continued, shooting Dean a sharp look, as if he could tell exactly what he’d been thinking of (which he probably could, damn him), “Eileen is more than capable of making sure he stays out of trouble.  I like her.”

Cas and Eileen had gotten along really well within five minutes of meeting each other.  The way her face had lit up when she realized that Cas could sign fluently in ASL had been enough to convince Dean to learn at least a few basic signs.

“I know all that.  I guess it’s just—Cas, bad things happen when we try to have nice things.”

He must have been imaging in the slightly hurt look on Cas’s face, because it was gone as soon as Dean registered it.

“These last few months have been pleasant,” Cas pointed out.

Dean considered for a moment.  Cas was right—aside from a few close shaves with a couple of monsters, things had been relatively calm.

“Huh.  I guess so.”

Cas’s face softened. “Then it will be fine.  Come help me with lunch, get your mind off of it.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Right in Front of Me! Updates will be every Friday for the next four weeks :)
> 
> Hit me up on tumblr at goodfemalecharacters


	2. The One Where Cas Gets a Driving Lesson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Eileen rent an apartment. Meanwhile, Dean and Cas talk about their future.

His fingers weren’t very fast yet, but it was more than most people had done for her over the years.

“Closer to your body,” she instructed, “but not touching.  That’s a good way to accidentally punch yourself in the jaw.”

Sam raised his eyebrows. “Is that your way of admitting that you’ve punched yourself in the jaw?”

She rolled her eyes. “I got excited.  And distracted.  Stop laughing!”

He made an honest effort to do as she said, but she was forced to whack him on the arm to shut him up anyway.

“Next time, I’m just going to let you punch yourself in the face.”

He repeated the sign with a little less vigor this time. “Like that?”

“You’re getting the hang of it.”

They’d gone out to eat in Wichita, ostensibly on a rugaru hunt.  Eileen knew that Sam didn’t want Dean to know that they’d gone to look at the apartment.

“You’re lying.  How have you gotten through so many years of hunting being such a terrible liar?”

Eileen grinned at him. “I let people think I’m stupid.”

It got exhausting sometimes, but it worked.  She made people regret underestimating her.

Sam mimicked the sign for stupid, swiping his hand over the top of his head.  Eileen reached over and rearranged his palm into a flatter shape before he could repeat it.

“Don’t actually touch your hair.  I know, it’s hard when you have so much.”

Sam mock-glared at her, but tried to sign it over again, much better than the first time.

“Have you told Dean?”

He glanced down at the table. Eileen poured some syrup on her pancakes to give him some time to answer.

“I tried.  He didn’t—didn’t take it particularly well.  I mean, he didn’t throw anything.”

That sounded like a pretty low bar to Eileen, but she didn’t comment.  From the little she’d been able to pry out of Sam about his life, he’d found himself in situations like this one before.

“Are you still going to—”

“Yes.  Absolutely.”

He reached over and stole a piece of the chocolate chip pancakes that Eileen had just cut up.

“I thought you were on some sort of cleanse!”

Sam grinned at her, a fleck of chocolate clinging stubbornly to his front tooth.  Eileen threw a wadded up napkin at him, but she couldn’t even stay mock mad at him for very long.

If the trendy smoothie place they passed on their way to the apartment wasn’t enough to sell Sam on the idea of an apartment, Eileen didn’t know what was.

“They don’t have washers and dryers installed, but there’s a set in the basement that’s included in our utility fee.  The only problem is going to be getting the laundry downstairs.”

Sam shrugged. “So we buy a cute laundry basket.”

Eileen would bet her life’s savings (not much, considering hunting hardly came with a 401K) that he’d never said a phrase like ‘cute laundry basket’ in his life.  But then again, neither had she.  This was a good change for both of them.

“Kitchen?” Sam asked.

Eileen shook her head. “Kitchenette.  But we have a breakfast nook!”

Have.  She was already hoping for present-tense.  Eileen looked sideways at him, wondering if he’d registered it.

He turned to her more fully so she could see his lips properly. “I’d like a breakfast nook.”

Eileen’s phone vibrated, alerting her to the turn they were supposed to take.  And then there it was.

“Here.” She pointed up at the building.  It didn’t look like much, but she smiled anyway. “Home.  Hopefully.”

The woman standing in the doorway looked about five or six years younger than Eileen. A bright smile fell into place at the sight of them.

“Eileen Leahy,” she introduced herself, shaking her hand. “We emailed about the apartment?”

She was all gums. “Let me just show you two around.  Moving in together?”

Eileen smiled back. “Obvious?”

The woman showed them through the apartment.  It wasn’t much—not that Eileen had been expecting anything fancy, seeing as they were Kansas—but just the fact that they were looking together delighted her.

“What did you think?” she asked in a low voice once they were a few steps away.

Sam’s smile was all she needed to see.

* * *

Dean put his phone down for what as probably the sixth or seventh time, waiting still for a text from Sam.

“He’s not going to text you faster if you keep checking,” Cas told him knowingly, never taking his eyes off of the newspaper he was skimming for a case.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean replied irritably. “Dad always used to say something like that—watched pot never boils.”

Of course, Dad had always said that about hunts, not things like waiting for Sammy’s college applications to come back like most parents would, but still.

“I’m not going to jump him with questions.”

Cas looked up. “Are you telling me, or telling yourself?”

“I think I liked the angelic, non-snarky version of you better.”

The words popped out of her mouth before he realized what he’d said.  Cas was still fragile with his newfound humanity, like a baby bird still hopping between branches before gathering the strength to fly.  They’d been careful not to shake his confidence.

“Not to say I don’t enjoy a good back and forth,” he amended hastily.

Cas’s face broke into one of those gummy smiles that Dean had grown to know far better than he would have ever thought.

“Good.  Because I’m not sure I know how to find the off button for my sarcasm button.”

Before Dean had a chance to make fun of him for the air quotes that he’d placed around the words ‘sarcasm button,’ his phone vibrated.

_We weren’t really hunting a rugaru._

Dean rolled his eyes, Sam was about as subtle as a brick.  He’d been stumbling around about this for a week.

_really?   never would have guessed_

_You’re a jerk, Dean._

The little bubbles that signaled that Sam was probably typing and retyping another response danced across the bottom of the screen.  Dean let him figure out the best way to phrase it.

_We looked at an apartment._

_and?_

_And, it’s really nice._

Dean could have shut his phone off then and there; he knew exactly how the rest of this conversation would go.  He let Sam describe the apartment anyway, using an almost Cas-level amount of emoticons.

Finally, he couldn’t stop himself from asking the inevitable question.

_you going to sign the lease?_

_I think so._

He could practically hear the uncertainty in Sam’s voice, almost as if he were asking.  He remembered that same uncertainty when Sam had wordlessly pulled the Stanford acceptance letter out of his duffel bag.

_good_

It took far more out of Dean than he’d anticipated to type the text.  As an afterthought, he added a smiley face, hoping to knock some passive aggressiveness of the text.  (Claire always got on his case about his texting habits, whining that his ending of texts with periods was needlessly aggressive.  He’d stopped doing it.)

“Driving lesson?” Cas asked, breaking his train of thought.

Dean knew it was supposed to be a diversion from the impending reality of Sam leaving, but he had to applaud Cas for trying.

“Yeah.  Sure.  Grab my keys out of my jacket.”

Cas had, in the absence of his trench coat, taken to wearing Dean’s jacket instead.  He didn’t know how to feel about that.

They made their way down into the garage, crowded with all of the supplies Dean had been using to refurbish some of the cars.  Cas had been spending his afternoons munching on the various (totally organic) snacks that Sam kept bringing him watching as Dean explained what each and every part did as he disassembled and reassembled pieces.

“Are you sure you don’t want to get the helmet off of the motorcycle?”

Dean mock-glared at him as they got in the car. “I take back what I said about liking your snark.”

He hadn’t been completely white knuckling it during the last few driving lessons; the fact that he’d let Cas drive the Impala at all was proof of that.

Cas stuck the keys in the ignition and twisted.  With a sideways glance at Dean, he ran his fingers across the deck before reaching for the wheel.

At least he knew how to treat her right.

“Smith Center?” Cas asked hopefully.

Dean rolled his eyes. “You just want a grilled cheese.”

Ever since Cas had fallen, he’d been trying every kind of food he could get his hands on.  His tastes, so far, had been incredibly mundane.  He preferred Kraft mac ‘n cheese to anything fancy.

Cas shrugged. “And?”

How was he supposed to argue with that kind of logic?

“Point taken.  Easy on the brake,” Dean cautioned as they finally turned on to the main road—well, as main as any place in Kansas could be.

At this point, there was very little he could teach Cas about driving.  He was just a pretty picky instructor.

His entire life, even though they had the bunker now, came down to this car.  Letting Cas drive it was like handing over the keys to his heart.

Whoa.   That was unexpectedly mushy.

“Cas?”

He glanced sideways at him, but still stayed more focused on the road.  That was one skill, at least, that he certainly hadn’t picked up from Dean.

“What is it, Dean?”

He had a habit of saying Dean’s name more than average in conversation.  At one point, Dean had thought it was an angelic quirk.  Over the years, he’d realized that it was just Cas.

“Do you—I mean—what do you want to do next?”

Cas chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Next?”

It was a more loaded question than Dean had intended, the kind of question that Cas could aim and fire at will.  To his surprise, he didn’t mind handing Cas the gun.

“You know.” Dean gestured uselessly out the window. “Surely you don’t want to be cooped up in a musty bunker forever.’

Cas just looked at him. “Do you?”

And the gun exchanged hands.  Dean turned it over in his mind like he would turn it over in his hand.  He hadn’t ever been given a future before—no choices, not like this.

When he didn’t say anything right away, Cas kept talking. “I want to stay with you.”

Dean couldn’t say anything the rest of the drive; his throat was too thick.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back, and thanks for reading :)
> 
> I know it's a little shorter this week, but when I was putting this together, I legitimately thought it was gonna be a 5k one-shot so I didn't break up my chapters intentionally for length.


	3. The One Where Dean and Cas Make Snickerdoodles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas and Eileen talk. Sam and Dean argue. So all in all, a pretty normal day.

“I don’t know how to be more obvious.”

The waitress stopped to fill up their coffees.  Eileen thanked her with a nod; Cas mentally added to her tip for excellent instincts—he’d almost been done with his first mug.

“You could put it on a t-shirt,” Eileen suggested, tipping her mug in his direction.  “Or you could make him a mixtape.”

Cas couldn’t quite meet her eyes.  She nearly choked on her coffee laughing.

“Oh my God, you didn’t.”

When Cas didn’t respond, she lowered her head into her hands and waited for her laughter to subside before she looked him in the eyes again.

“He made me one.  Led Zepplin.  That was a few years ago.” Cas said, shaking his head with an eye roll. “He either didn’t think through his song choices or he simply missed the sexual overtones of—”

Judging by the look on her face, it would be better not to finish that sentence.

“No one’s ever made me a mixtape.” At the questioning eyebrow, she continued. “I can still feel the vibrations.  Besides, it’s the thought that counts.”

She smiled at him.  Cas could see why Sam liked her.  She clearly understood the life, but she’d retained her good humor anyway.

“Have you considered actually just…telling him?  Or would that be too easy?”

“I did.  Once.  Sort of.”

Eileen’s eyebrows practically vanished into her hairline as he told her about the hunt with Ramiel, complete with a stabbing and a confession.

“No offense, Cas,” she said, “but that’s a little more platonic sounding than what I was suggesting.”

Cas took a bite out of his croissant—not quite as good as the one he’d had while in France, but pretty decent for Kansas—and chewed it thoughtfully.

“Yes.  I see where you’re coming from.”

She glanced at him, then down to her pastry, then back again.

“If you want my opinion—he loves you.  And he’s dying to know you do, too.”

* * *

As Cas and Eileen basically got to know their respective brother and sister in law, things at the bunker got quiet.  Not Dean before the storm quiet.  Awkward quiet.  They sat facing each other at the table.  Dean’s eyes stayed glued on their initials carved into the wood.

“The apartment was cute,” Sam said once he got to the point where he couldn’t stand the quiet anymore.

“That’s good.”

Great.  He’d gone and shut down like he always did when he’d rather not deal with something.

Sam cleared his throat. “Look, Dean.  I want to talk about this.  So I’m going to need you to actually speak words.”

He could practically see Dean bristle at the insinuation.  Sam caught himself before he rolled his eyes.

“Sam.  I’m fine.”

“Uh huh.  That’s why you’ve been staring at me like you’re afraid that I’m going to disappear for the last five and a half minutes.”

Maybe that was the wrong thing to say.  Sam was used to angry Dean, who yelled and occasionally punched things but cooled off after a few minutes of exhausting himself.  This was the angry Dean that had surfaced the night he left for Stanford, helpful and resigned on the surface but utterly frothing underneath.

Sam had a sneaking suspicion that Dad had come back the next morning to find one of his sons midflight and the other mid-nap, passed out on one of the two beds with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and one of Sam’s sweatshirts in the other.

“Fine.  If you’re so anxious to leave, then just go.”

His voice remained measured, dead calm to anyone who hadn’t grown up with a thousand fights over the remote and a hundred other stupid things.

“Dean—”

“I’m serious.  Just grab your stuff and get out.  Eileen and Cas will be back soon.  You can be ready to go.”

Sam stood, pushing the chair back with an ugly screeching noise.  Dean anchored his gaze on a scratch on the tabletop as he quietly moved out of the room

There wasn’t a whole lot to pack, which just proved Sam’s point again.  This bunker had never been his home.  Dean, even Cas, had nested.  They’d made the bunker more than a workplace.  This apartment?  This would be his first shot at home in a long time.

He’d virtually digitized the entire library by this point, so he didn’t bother picking up any of the books on his bedside table besides the guide to ASL that he’d picked up a few years back.  Sure, he basically had a live-in tutor at this point, but it would still be nice to be able to surprise her every once in a while.

Other than that, he didn’t really have anything that he didn’t share with Dean, so Sam sat down on the edge of his bed instead of trying to pick anything else. Up.  He didn’t think Dean would take very kindly in his present state to Sam taking anything he viewed as his.

He wanted to leave, yeah, but not like this.  He wanted to leave Dean on good terms.  He texted Eileen and it didn’t take too long for her to respond.

_we’re coming.  just don’t do anything stupid._

Sam almost texted back that he would never do anything like that, but they both knew that that wasn’t true.  He deleted it before he sent.  If Eileen noticed the little bubbles from hi typing, she didn’t comment.

After what felt like millennia—and Sam of all people would know—his phone buzzed again, announcing that Eileen and Cas were home.

At the bunker.

Whatever.

Sam hoisted his duffel bag over his shoulder and edged out into the hallway, half afraid that he’d find his brother setting up camp outside his room.  He didn’t know whether to be relieved or mildly offended when he didn’t.

As much as he wanted to take the coward’s way out and pass by his brother’s refuge in the kitchen, he couldn’t do it.

“Hey.  We’re leaving.”

Great.  He was _baking._ If anything, that was worse than regular cooking when he got upset.  Before watching Dean, Sam would have never said there was such a thing as an aggressive baker, but his brother was definitely that.

“Fantastic.  Have fun.”

Dean didn’t even look up from—was that chocolate chip cookie dough?

Then, “I have a tray cooling.  Give it to Eileen.  Housewarming present.”

Despite the fact that Dean wasn’t even talking in full sentences, Sam new that the gesture meant something.

“Thank you.”

Dean didn’t look up as he left.  He might have accepted it during his self-imposed baking therapy, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

* * *

Cas tugged the blanket up to his chin with a small huff.

“I got you those thick socks for a reason,” Dean told him.

Cas’s eyes snapped over to Dean, who lounged next to him in a pair of running shorts he probably wouldn’t admit to owning and a t-shirt that had been through the wash twenty too many times.  How he wasn’t freezing was beyond Cas.

“I’m wearing them.”

Dean made fun of him for always wearing too many layers, even when the weather was warm, but Cas had been freezing virtually since he’d given up his Grace.

“For God’s sake.” Dean reached past him to fumble around in the cushions for the remote control.  Cas let out a small _oof_ as the air was knocked out of him.  Dean pressed the pause button and withdrew.

“Come here.”

Cas just blinked at him for a moment.  After tearing through the Smith Center library collection of DVDs over the last few months, Cas was pretty sure that this was a rom-com-esque overture.  The real question—did Dean know it, too?

Deciding that it didn’t matter, Cas scooted across the couch until he was pressed against Dean, back to chest.  Without even commenting, Dean pressed the play button, and they watched the rest of the documentary.

* * *

Dean had found a snickerdoodle recipe online that he couldn’t resist trying out.  Baking always included dodging Cas through the kitchen.  He managed to burn virtually everything he ever cooked, including the Campbell soup that Dean had set him to making one of the first evenings that Sam had brought Eileen home for dinner.

They’d held hands under the table.  And Sam had thought he was being subtle.

“I can help,” Cas insisted, credibility somewhat shot by the puff of flower lingering in the recently spiky parts of his graying hair.

“Mix the cinnamon sugar.”

Somehow, throughout the course of the afternoons, they made fewer than a dozen cookies and they’d thrown more than half of the ingredients at each other.

Dean’s chest hurt from laughing.  He glanced sideways at Cas, who was actually _grinning,_ not the half crazed smile Dean had seen in another version of 2014, but a sweet, genuine smile.

“You’ve got something,” Dean said.

And then, without even thinking about it, he reached out and wiped a bit of snickerdoodle dough off of Cas’s cheek.  They both froze like that, Dean’s finger just barely skimming the peach fuzz.

“We should clean up,” Cas said after a painful moment.

“Right.  Yeah.  Will do.”

Both of them got to their feet and kept sending looks the other’s way when they thought they weren’t looking while they cleaned the dishes and munched on the cookies they’d managed to bake.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the lovely comments and kudos :)


	4. The One Where Eileen Gets a Warm Winchester Welcome

It occurred to Sam slowly.  During an evening reading quietly in the living room, curled together on the loveseat that was really too small for a man of Sam’s size.  Washing the dishes after a particularly late evening dinner, splashing each other with the bubbles.  Waking up late on a Saturday morning, the sunlight Sam had pined for in the bunker spilling across her sleeping face.

It slipped out when they were folding the laundry.

“We should get married.

He signed the words, didn’t say them.  That wouldn’t have felt right.

“What?”

Something cold sunk through his body.

“You don’t want to?  I mean, it’s just that we’ve been living together for a while, and I thought…”

She frowned. “But we just had that last night?”

If possible, Sam was even more confused now than he had been five minutes ago.

“What?”

She looked slightly annoyed. “We had burgers last night, Sam.  Don’t you remember?”

They _had_ had burgers.  Sam had been feeling, oddly enough, a little homesick.  Dean hadn’t called in a while, hadn’t even played his turn on Words With Friends.  But he didn’t see what that had to do with—

“Oh my God.”

It slowly began to dawn on him what he’d done.

“No.  No.  Eileen.” He signed it again, replacing what he’d actually signed as hamburger.

Her face broke into a smile.  “Yes.” She signed it enthusiastically, almost punching Sam in the face with her excitement.

“I don’t have a ring or anything,” Sam admitted, scratching at his neck.  “But I just didn’t want to wait.”

Right in that moment, he couldn’t even have begun to imagine going out and searching for the perfect ring, waiting for the most opportune moment.  Waiting seemed like an impossibility.

Her lip started to wobble.

“Eileen?  Hey.  We’ll go get one.  I just—”

“You’re an idiot,” she said, swiping her hand over her head like she’d taught him. “But I love you anyway.”

Sam’s own eyes grew wet in response.  He didn’t usually think of himself as a sappy person—loathe as Dean was to admit it, that was more his forte—but he couldn’t help it.

“I love you, too.”

* * *

 

In typical Winchester fashion, Castiel found out about the engagement before Dean did.  Eileen texted him a picture of her ring.  He wisely didn’t mention it to Dean, who would probably want to be the first one to know.  He did, however, text her a heart-eyes emoji.

One afternoon, while he was reading in the old squishy armchair they’d recently acquired at a yard sale, Dean wandered into the room, looking rather like someone had knocked him over the head.

“They’re getting married.  Set a date and everything.”

Cas pulled his best surprised face.  It wasn’t particularly convincing, but Dean was too wrapped up in himself to realize.

“How are you feeling?” Cas ventured after a long moment, realizing that Dean would probably keep staring at the wall in stunned silence until prompted.

“I’m proud of him.”

Cas hadn’t been expecting that, but it was a nice surprise.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Dean smiled a little crookedly.  “He did what I never managed to do.”

The unspoken _find somebody_ floated in the air between them. Cas swallowed the bitterness in his throat down.  He’d sworn to himself that he’d let Dean take the reins—if he wanted a friend, Cas would be that friend.  But there was a new question now:  would he leave someday, too?

The next few weeks consisted of more planning than Cas would have ever expected from two people that weren’t the couple getting married.  Dean created a wishlist for Sam and Eileen on one of those department store websites and sent it to the relatively small guest list.

“Should we get them the knife set or should we get them that cooker we saw on TV the other day?”

To Cas’s surprise, the knife set in question had nothing to do with stabbing and everything to do with cutlery.

“It looks like Jody already got them the cooker,” Cas said, glancing over his shoulder.

“Damn.  Knew I shouldn’t have posted that thing.”

Dean dumped the knife set in his shopping cart and clicked order.

“I should check and see if the flowers got delivered.”

Cas rolled his eyes. “It’s still a week until the wedding.  If they showed up now, they’d all be dead by the time they said the vows.”

In his effort to make up for being a tad unsupportive, Dean had been going overboard in his best man duties.  It didn’t help that there wasn’t really anyone on Eileen’s end to stop him.

“Maybe the tuxes are in.”

Cas allowed Dean to bundle him into the Impala and drive all the way to Smith Center’s tuxedo rental.

“They said they didn’t want anything fancy,” Cas reminded him as Dean all but dragged him out of the car and into the store.

“You only get married once.” A beat. “Well.  If you do it right the first time, anyway.’

Cas tried not to read into the fact that Dean let out a wolf whistle when he modeled his tux.

The next week couldn’t possibly go fast enough.  Dean’s anxiety mounted to dizzying levels on the night of the bachelor party.  By the time they pulled up in front of the apartment, Dean’s knee was juggling up and down so rapidly that Cas feared he’d wear a hole in the bottom of the Impala.

“Jody made it!” he said, unnecessarily pointing out Jody’s truck parked in front of them on the street.

They were immediately ambushed as they got out of the car.  Donna tackled Dean into a hug as soon as he got one foot on the pavement. Cas found himself in the much gentler hands of Mary, whose hug wasn’t nearly as aggressive.

“It’s nice to see you.”

Her relationship with her sons had been improving slowly but steadily since they’d kicked the British Men of Letters out of the country.  Castiel, who knew firsthand what it was like to be controlled by people who were supposed to be your friends, hadn’t taken quite as long to warm up to her again.

“You too.  You should come by the bunker again soon.  Dean keeps making dinners that are far too large for the two of us.”

“He’s trying to be a good husband,” Claire muttered under her breath, ignoring the jab to the ribs Alex handed her.

Cas tried to ignore it, which wasn’t hard.  The rest of the women who’d shown up to take Eileen out for a hen party kept him occupied.

“Cas,” Jody said warmly, turning a smile on him. “Claire told me you dumped the trench, but I almost didn’t believe her.”

Dean was in the middle of introducing his mother to Mildred, who from what Cas had understood had been present when Sam and Eileen met, when the front door to the apartment building opened.

Eileen’s eyes widened slightly at the sight of everyone.  (When Dean had realized that she wouldn’t have anyone to take her out after a long road of working alone, he’d marshalled the troops).  She tossed a quick sign Cas’s way—intimidating, if he was interpreting it right.  He fired back ‘you’ll be fine’ before the women all but swept her up and bundled her into the van Donna had rented for the occasion.

“Did you just kidnap my wife?” Sam said after a moment of watching them drive away, utterly bemused.

“Wife to be,” Dean reminded him. “C’mon, get in, we’ve got a lot packed in tonight.”

* * *

Eileen had spent a lot of her life alone.  Sure, there’d been plenty of hunting partners, but they never lasted, gruesome as that sounded.  She hadn’t thought she was marrying into a _pack._

The woman on the passenger side with the with the brown hair cropped short appeared to be in charge, so Eileen kept her eyes on her—was it Jody?—reflection so she’d be able to read her lips.  Why had she agreed to this again?

“All right,” Jody said after swiveling around to face her-either someone had given her a lesson, or she was just both unusually perceptive and unusually polite. “I’m Jody.  Driving this crazy car is Donna.  She’s a sheriff up north.”

Donna gave her a little wave. “Hey!  Glad to see someone’s got one of those boys locked down.”

Her eyebrows danced up and down knowingly.  Eileen let out a snort of laughter.

“Then you’ve got my two girls, Claire and Alex.  Neither of them can drink, and don’t let them convince you otherwise.  And I hope you know your mother mother-in-law.”

Squashed behind her, Mary gave a little wave.  She’d had dinner with them a few times, and they’d worked a vamp case together a while back, but Eileen still wasn’t sure what to make of her.  She seemed like she didn’t belong, no matter where she was standing.  Eileen could relate.

She glanced over at Mildred, who signed, “I haven’t been to a bachelorette party in years!”

They pulled to a halt in front of a classier bar than the sort they usually frequented for cases.

If the poor hostess thought there was anything strange about the combination of women trooping up to the bar, she didn’t mention it.  Eileen wound up sandwiched between Claire and Alex.  Unable to drink, they settled for Coke and flinging peanuts at each other.

“So, you went for Sam when Dean was around?” Alex asked after a while.

Claire made a face. “Oh, ew.  He’s like forty.”

Eileen raised her eyebrows. “I’m thirty-six.”

Claire took another handful of peanuts and didn’t apologize. “Yeah, see.  For you, it’s not weird.”

“It’s not like I want to marry him.  God, Claire.  I was just commenting—”

“I can’t believe you didn’t consider hair,” Eileen pointed out with a grin. “Please don’t tell him you prefer Dean’s hair.’

While the two girls debated the merits and detriments of the Winchesters’ hair, Mary appeared at her elbow.

“Hey.  Do you mind if we talk a minute?”

Of all the people she’d expected to corner her tonight, Mary had not made the list.  From the little Eileen knew, she mostly kept to herself.

“Yeah, sure.”

She let Mary steer her into the warm burst of summer air outside.

“You make him happy.”

“What?”

Mary took a breath.  In the half lighting from the neon sign above their heads, her youth seemed more obvious than ever.

Sam had told her the story right before she’d met Mary for the first time—how she’d died, how she’d returned—so she hadn’t been expecting woman in her sixties.

“Sam’s not a happy man,” she said quietly, her boots scuffing in the gravel. “Never got the chance to be.  But when he talks about you, he brightens up.  I just wanted to say that.”

It took a few seconds for Eileen to register that that was actually a pretty big compliment.

“If it’s anything, Mary, he makes me happy, too.”

An awkward pause.  Then, Mary smiled. “I can drink to that.”

* * *

It almost felt weird to be out, just the three of them.  Cas couldn’t help but be reminded of the first few months after he’d become human.  They’d been giving the bunker a wide berth back then, making sure that the Men of Letters hadn’t decided to reclaim it as their own.  That had meant lots of motels and dive bars.

Like this one.  Why Dean had let Jody get away with getting the only upscale bar in town was beyond Cas.

“Just like old times,” Dean said, unknowingly echoing Cas’s thoughts as he clapped a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Can’t believe you’re about to give up a life on the wide open road for some girl.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “You live in an underground bachelor pad with your best friend, Dean.”

Cas tried and failed not to read into why that statement made him so uncomfortable.  While he tried to school his face into something less revealing, the Winchesters ordered them all shots.  (Cas didn’t bother saying that he’d rather give the blueberry martini a whirl.)  By the time he refocused on the conversation, it took another turn.

“No, seriously.  I’m happy for you.” Dean tilted the shot glass in Sam’s direction. “I didn’t think either of us would ever get this.  I’m happy it was you.”

Sam glanced sideways at Cas before he spoke. “I don’t know.  You and Cas seem to have…this.”

Dean didn’t answer. “To my baby brother being all grown up,”

Cas swallowed down the shot to avoid having to arrange his face after the lack of comment.  Despite the fact that he wasn’t an angel anymore, it didn’t really burn as it went down.  Cas had found his alcohol tolerance to be higher than even Dean’s.  He immediately wanted another one to wash away the bad taste in his mouth.

They started reminiscing.  For Cas’s part, he sat back and watched the brothers interact.  During one particularly rowdy reenactment of Sam’s first date, Dean fell off his barstool and almost landed in Cas’s lap.

“I definitely didn’t do that,” Sam said with an eye roll.

Sensing that they were about to wander off in another reverie that he couldn’t really take part in, Cas excused himself to the bathroom.  On the way, a tall, bearded man caught his eye.  Cas offered him a small smile—Dean said it made him look like he had ‘less of a stick up his ass’—and ducked into the bathroom.  By the time he emerged again, the guy had gotten out of his seat.

“Jacob,” he said smoothly, extending his hand.

Cas took it, pretending not to notice that Jacob lingered longer than he strictly had to. 

“Cas.”

It still felt weird sometimes to introduce himself with a nickname, but Castiel felt too weighty without the familiar weight of his wings.  Jacob’s lips quirked.

“Interesting.  I’ve never heard that one before.” His eyes slid slowly up and down Cas’s body, tongue poking slightly between his teeth. “Can I buy you a drink, Cas?”

Just as Cas was about to say yes, he spotted Dean storming out of the door to the bar, leaving a bemused Sam sitting at the bar, watching him go. 

“I—um.  Thanks.  Really.  But I have to—”

Before he could make the situation any more awkward than it was already, Cas fled the scene, heading straight past Sam and out the door.

“What the hell was that?” he demanded.

Dean looked up from where he was leaning up against the grill of the Impala, not remorseful in the slightest.

“What the hell was what?”

Cas gestured violently back at the door. “Storming out of there like a moody teenager!”

Dean raised his eyebrows. “At least I’m not a _horny_ teenager.”

His jaw actually dropped.  Cas spluttered a few times before he was able to get his words in order.  It took everything he had to not raise his voice to a shout.  Instead, it came out through clenched teeth.

“We were talking!” Cas snapped. “And besides, I can’t see why you’d care what I do.”

“Oh, I don’t know, because it’s my brother’s bachelor party?”

Cas silently fumed for a few seconds.  It wasn’t like he’d been sitting in Jacob’s lap or shoving his tongue down his throat. 

“This isn’t what this little outburst is about and you know it!”

“Oh, so what is about, then, since you’re my therapist?”

He wanted to say that seeing a therapist about all the feelings he had crammed down in his brain without dealing them for literal years on end would be helpful, but he wisely held his tongue. 

“Our _thing,_ as Sam so aptly put it.”

“There is no _thing_!”

He froze, surprised by how much that stung. 

“So I can go back in there and strike up my conversation without you staring daggers into his skull?”

“I—you—” Dean spluttered ineffectively. “Fine.  You know what?  Do whatever you want.  I don’t give a damn.”

Cas turned on his heel and walked back inside, hands clenching at his sides.

 

 


	5. The One Where Everybody Dances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Eileen finally get married. And Dean and Cas finally…talk.

The night hadn’t been nearly as awkward as it could have been, Dean reflected as he tied the laces on the dress shoes he’d bought specifically for the occasion.  Sure, Cas hadn’t even looked at him as he rolled himself into a cocoon on his bed.  Sure, he hadn’t gotten so much as a grunt in response when he’d asked if Cas would mind if he watched a little TV before turning out the light.  Sure, Cas had vanished into the bathroom like fifteen minutes ago to avoid him and hadn’t returned.  So what?

He could have booked another room, right?

By the time Cas emerged from the bathroom, it was almost time to get to the ceremony.  Dean had to stop himself from staring at him.  Cas-as-a-human seemed to prefer casual clothing, though he looked damn good in a suit that actually fit him.

“Your tie is crooked.”

Before he realized what he was doing, Dean had reached out and straightened it.  If Cas was annoyed by it, he didn’t show it.

“Let’s go.”

Okay.  Maybe a little annoyed.  They drove to the church—yeah, an actual church, Sam had insisted—and got there with only a few minutes to spare.  Though it wasn’t like they had to worry about the crowd.  There were more living people to attend the wedding than Dean had anticipated, but it still wasn’t much of a group.

“You’re late,” Jody hissed the moment they entered the sanctuary.

She shoved Cas in Claire’s general direction, and then grabbed Dean by the cuff of his tux and hauled him to one of the Sunday school classrooms, where Sam was fiddling with his tie.  He looked more like the baby giraffe of a kid that Dean had sent off to prom than he had in years.

“Ready for this, Sammy?”

“Five minutes!” Jody reminded them, before speeding off in the other direction.

Sam grinned, none of the hangups Dean had been expecting visible on his face. “Yeah.  I am.”

Something tightened in Dean’s chest.  Fourteen years ago, Sam had stood outside the burned-out shell of his apartment building.  Seven years ago, Hell-fresh, he had lain trembling from the force of his hallucinations in motel beds, flinching at any touch.  Five years ago, he’d fought Gadreel out of his head.

Now, he was getting married, when just the pure fact of their breathing was miracle enough.

“Have you seen her yet?”

Sam shook his head. “Bad luck, remember?”

After everything they’d been through, it seemed ridiculous to be worried about bad luck on a wedding day.  Or maybe it wasn’t ridiculous at all.  Shaking his head, he steered Sam out into the narthex of the church.

“Can’t believe I’m walking you down the aisle,” he snarked.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Can’t believe you’re giving me away.”

Dean had to smile at that. “Yeah, well, it took a while.”

With that, they headed off down the aisle.  It wasn’t a particularly long walk; the chapel was a small one, the better to make their small crowd seem less so.  Dean couldn’t help glancing over at his not-so-little brother every few seconds.  He looked—and Dean didn’t use the term frequently—radiant. 

In the pews, Mom smiled out at both of them, eyes brimming with tears.  Beside her, Donna, Jody, and the girls grinned.  Garth and his family took up almost an entire pew themselves.

Finally, they reached the end. “See you on the other side,” Dean said with a smirk, before joining Mom and Cas in the first row.

He turned around just in time to see Eileen and Mildred walk through the doors.  She’d swept her hair away from her face in a complicated knot, and her dress was long and flowing, making it look like she was floating rather than walking down the aisle.  Sam had made the right call on this one.

“She looks lovely,” Cas observed in his ear, any annoyance forgotten in the moment.

Dean refrained from crying through most of the wedding.  Yeah, okay, he teared up a little bit when Sam did his vows (slowly, and in ASL), but it wasn’t like he was the only one.  He was pretty sure Jody was about to start a small puddle around her sometime soon.

Okay.  He did cry a little when they introduced Mr. and Mrs. Leahy-Winchester at the start of the reception, but that might have at least been partly due to Mom’s death grip on his arm, her own eyes brimming with tears.

“How are you gonna make it through the first dance?” Dean muttered in her ear.

She shook her head. “He was six months old like a year ago.  Sue me.”

* * *

“You look beautiful,” Sam told her, careful to make sure she could see his lips.

A dance was not exactly the best time to try to have a conversation with your Deaf wife, but Sam knew that they’d be swamped with people for the rest of the evening, so he wanted to take advantage of their moments alone while he had the chance.

She grinned. “I wasn’t sure white was my color.”

As far as Sam was concerned, every color was her color.  He opened his mouth to say so, but she beat him to it.

“I’m glad we’re here.”

He didn’t know if he meant here as in ‘both still miraculously alive despite the ridiculous odds against it’ or ‘getting married in the first place,’ but he couldn’t possibly agree more.

“I love you.”

The song faded away just as she got on her tiptoes to press a gentle kiss to his lips. “I love you, too.”

As the next song started, Sam glanced over at his family.  Dean was turning an odd purple color.  Sam squinted at him, trying to work out what could possibly be causing it.

“Oh my God it’s happening,” Eileen signed, releasing his shoulders for a moment to flash through the words, just slow enough for Sam to understand. “About time.”

And then, to Sam’s utter shock, Dean abruptly reached over to Cas, grabbed his hand, and dragged him out on to the dance floor.

“You knew about this?” he asked her.

Shaking her head at his obtuseness, she sighed and tugged him closer.  Sam shrugged.  They’d have time to work it out  later.

* * *

Dean had faced an actual literal hellhound intent on dragging him to Hell, and even so he’d never been this nervous in his life.  He hesitated before putting his hands on Cas’ waist.  He eyed Dean suspiciously for a moment before wrapping his arms around his neck.

“Cas.  Last night.  I shouldn’t have reacted like I did.  And I’m sorry about that.”

Cas smiled. “You’re forgiven.”

He leaned closer into Dean’s space, so close that Dean could feel the warm puff of air from his breath on his face.  It smelled like the mints they had at each of the tables.

“You were jealous.”

His ears grew warm. “I—yeah.  Okay.  A little bit.”

This was not how he expected this moment to go.  He’d thought maybe he’d be holding his guts in with his fingertips painted red, panting out a confession.  Or maybe it would be thirty years from now in the bunker, and he’d be doing the dishes, and it would just slip out.  Or maybe he’d find the guts to buy him flowers.

“You know,” Cas said, “when I was given the choice between Heaven and Earth, it wasn’t a choice at all.  Not really.”

He shifted his grip and absently stroked one finger against the hairs on Dean’s neck.  For the life of him, Dean couldn’t figure out whether or not it had been intentional.

“After all, you’re on Earth.”

Dean didn’t hesitate.  He leaned forward and kissed him, nearly knocking their teeth together in his rush.  Cas responded in kind, enthusiasm more than making up for experience.  It wasn’t until a few blissful seconds had passed and Dean realized that they were in the middle of his brother’s wedding, that he had the common sense to draw back.

“So,” he said with a smile. “When the time comes, do you want something like this?”

Cas moved his thumb in that same slow circle on his neck. “All I need’s right in front of me.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for sticking through this fic with me! I've so appreciated all the comments and kudos :)


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